Blogroll

Meta

Pages

RSS Implementation Guide (Part 1 of ‘many’)

First off… the abbreviation RSS has two conflicting (but similar) meanings, both of which are XML file formats for web syndication:

RDF Site Summary

Really Simple Syndication

If you are already running a Blog or other web application that provides support for RSS, most of the work is already done for you. Here we will cover the integration of the “Feed” into your other websites.

If you take a look at the HTML source of this page, it should closely resemble what is shown below…

There's not a whole lot of difference in the actual content of these different feeds, they all contain the same 'core'
content, but apply it to different standards (each of which has it's own strengths and weaknesses).

To add the feed link to your site, it's recommended to use one or more of the 'feed' types and place the appropriate <link> into the <head> section of your website.

A 'standard' icon for RSS was recently agreed upon by Microsoft (for MSIE 7.0) and the Mozilla Organization - it is the orange colored icon that is shown here (). Many websites that support RSS subscriptions have opted to place this in the footer of their pages.

In upcoming articles we'll show you how the RSS feed itself is created and discuss the differences in each format.